


everchanging

by nezstorm



Category: Original Work
Genre: Agender Character, Aromantic, Bigender Character, Bisexuality, Empath, Fallen Angels, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Genderfluid Character, Genderqueer Character, Obsessive Behavior, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Stalking, Supernatural Elements, Trans Character, Werewolves, chameleons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-10 19:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17431775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezstorm/pseuds/nezstorm
Summary: Alex knew staring college would bring a lot of changes into his life. What he didn't expect was for his roommate to also be his soulmate.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an original story of mine that I've started working on a while back and then stopped. I only ever posted bits and pieces on tumblr.   
> I have a little over 5k of this in snippets and it's the snippets that I'll be posting. All in hope that it'll help motivate me to actually write.

_ I would love you, like I don't know how to love just yet _ , he thinks and doesn't dare say as he watches them putter about, spreading little knick-knacks all over the room. Making their presence known without even starting on the boxes stacked by the wall and unpacking properly.

 

They're so chaotic in the way they arrange their new space and it makes Alex smile, stupidly fond. He's so gone already and they've only just got here, brought up their stuff, changed into lighter, messier clothes, and began roaming and touching and learning their new space.

 

They didn't even spot Alex, but not many people do at first, he's come to appreciate that. He has a tendency to just  _ blend in _ when he's relaxed, letting go and allowing his skin to change as it pleases.

 

He's totally in his right to just say hello and startle his new roommate since he never consciously tried to hide his presence and was already there in the room. But it's not their fault and it wouldn't do to build their companionship on the basis of Alex being a creep.

 

Especially not when they call to Alex so sweetly.

 

He stands, as silently as he can, thankful that he was sitting in his chair since the bedsprings would creak and give him away at once. He takes a few steps to the door his roommate left ajar and opens them, raps his knuckles on the frame softly for good measure.

 

"Hello," he says.

 

He watches them turn to face him, the soft bounce of their curls, the swish of the oversized tee, the careful smile.

 

"Hi?"

 

"I'm Alex." He introduces himself, takes a step closer and offers his hand. "Looks like we'll be roommates this year."

 

"Jamie," they reply, but don't take his hand. "Sorry, but I'm not very comfortable touching new people."

 

They shrug, self-depreciating, but relax when Alex offers and easy smile back.

 

"Fair enough. How about we get some food and talk about the dos and don'ts then? See if we'll fit?"

 

They will, he knows, but all in due time.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Nadine throws a fry at his head as soon as the waiter turns away from their table, but is kind enough to not have dipped it in ketchup beforehand.

 

Alex picks up the fry from the table where it dropped after colliding with his cheek. He gives it a cursory look, shrugs, and eats it much to his sibling’s disgust. 

 

“That is so fucking creepy. ‘Lex,” she scolds, though she doesn’t mean the fry at all. “I hope you’re aware.”

 

“Since when are mates and bonds a creepy subject?” Alex asks, incredulous. “You’re with Danni, that’s how you found each other.”

 

“But it wasn’t the first ever connection I’ve felt to someone and I damn asked if she felt anything almost immediately. You’ve been roommates for a month now and I’ve yet to hear that they’re aware of what’s going on. What you’re doing could just as well be called stalking, you weirdo. You’re one step away from stealing their dirty laundry.”

 

Alex frowns down at his untouched burger feeling attacked and disappointed, a tiny bit betrayed.

 

This is not at all what he expected to hear after telling Nadine about finding Jamie and feeling a bond flare between them. She should be happy for him!

 

“Listen,” she says, softer this time, nudging him under the table with her boot to get his attention, “either be upfront with them or kill it in the bud. It’ll only get worse the longer you’re hiding it from Jamie, and honestly? You’re being very selfish and childish about this. Maybe you’re not quite ready for this to happen either.”

 

“That’s--”

 

“Not what you want to hear, I know.” Nadine finishes for him. “But it’s what you should hear before you do something unforgivable.”

 

He tenses at that, ready to defend himself because she’s not playing fair at all, but he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly because there is some truth in her words. Still. 

 

“That’s a low blow.”

 

“Maybe, but it should be easy to prove me wrong, little brother.”

 

\--


	3. Chapter 3

Nadine has felt this before. Twice already, maybe three times. She was too late for that last one anyways. 

 

The first one was in high school, with a boy so smart everyone admired and hated him. He was a smartass above all else and Nadine couldn’t get enough of how easy it was to snark with him. 

 

But he didn’t want to be bound and settled with her then, couldn’t quite feel the connection as strongly as she did, and as much as it hurt and stung she had to let it go.

 

The second time was a year later, with a couple she only just stumbled on at a party, but felt drawn to at first touch and glance. They’ve danced the night away, talked the morning through. She spent two weeks giddy from the high of having found her ideal people, ones that fit and accepted that she could be theirs too.

 

Only the last bit wasn’t all true; she had to retreat before she divided them completely.

 

With Danni it was like she’s been building up to it for a while. Steadily, slowly, not quite sure if she was ready to let another person in through.

 

But Danni wasn’t just anyone. Danni is a force equal to the ocean: vast and rich, bright and dark and deep at the same time. Fae knew there was something to Nadine always dropping in at the cafe Danni worked at, lagging behind, but never quite flirting back when Danni tried. 

 

Until one evening Nadine came in, waited until Danni could take a break and sat faer down for a talk. It was long and as confusing as it was enlightening: soulbonds exist, not everyone feels them the same, they’re not set in stone. But when they’re true they last. Nadine is a woman, but also not always quite, same as Danni switches between genders without a prompt.

 

Nadine didn’t want to get burnt again, but Danni still wanted to give it a try.

 

Five years later they’re still both holding true.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lowercase in this part was intentional. I don't know if I'll keep it in the end, but that's how I'm keeping it for now.

_i’m nothing without you,_  he says. he means. grabs at straws where there’s none for him to see.

 

 _that’s sick. that’s selfish,_ they answer, _that’s not how it should be._

 

 _i’m nothing,_ he fights, _i was nothing before i met you. i was nothing for so long and now you’re here and my world has expanded. it_ **means** _. so many things._

 

 _i am my own. i am not yours to possess and use to validate your need to own,_ it stings, their words, burns right through his skin. and they don’t even look angry with him, _you’re not nothing - you’re guilting me into rubbing your ego the way you’ve been trying to rub off on me. you want to invade my mind the same way you’ve been invading my life,_ they pause, then press on with feeling, _i won’t have you._

 

_but we’re meant to-_

 

 _maybe. maybe i’m meant to mean something to you. maybe i’m meant to make you realize that you yourself should take control over your own life and try and give it the quality you need,_ they tell him, bag already slung over their shoulder, their space emptied like they’re trying to put a void in his life, one he never knew he’d see, _i won’t take that responsibility when you don’t value me for anything else than supposedly being yours._

 

 _i’m yours, too! we’re each other’s! a we,_ he argues, clutches at a shirt too broad for him.

 

 _you’re you and i’m yours-to-be. and that’s not something i can ever agree with_ , they don’t fight him for the shirt. don’t argue anymore or try and beat sense into him.

 

they just leave.


	5. Chapter 5

"We're joined at the soul," Alex insists, his body changing colors at an alarming pace as he walks back and forth in front of May. "We're soulmates, we're literally made for each other. I don't understand."

 

"I do, though, the more I listen to you. I totally get why they literally told you to fuck off."

 

Alex rounds on him like he's something more than a chameleon in distress. Abandoned and rejected by the one true love of his life.

 

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!” He whisper-shouts, emotions welling up inside him in the form of patchwork colors flickering through, “You and Nadine, everybody else that knows. All you keep doing is try to make me feel like the villain when it's  **my** souldbond we're talking about.  _ My fucking soulmate! _ "

May looks at him in disbelief, one eyebrow raised so high it almost disappears in his fringe.

 

"Wrong with me? Buddy, you're damn obsessed. You've been circling around your potential bondmate like a vulture, literally waiting for them to lay down and let you take what you've deemed to be yours. Dude. I'm not one of you supernatural creatures, but I sure as hell can tell you that the way you have been behaving ever since you've met Jamie has me seeing the serial killer in you. It's like you've lost all brain functions and not in the love-sick puppy way at all."

 

"No. No, you're not like us so you don't get it. You don't get to feel the way a bond feels. The way it overshadows everything else.  _ Nothing _ else matters. Nothing else is ever remotely as strong as the feeling of finally finding someone that is meant to be the love of your life."

 

"Have you learned nothing from Nadine? Not all bonds you feel are true. It's your first-"

 

"It's my only," Alex interrupts, his words final, "It's the only bond that'll ever matter and I can feel it. I know it deep within my bones."

 

"You're my friend, Alex, but the way you're acting about this is super fucking wrong. Just let them go."

 

"I can't."


	6. Chapter 6

"You kissed her! You won’t even allow me to touch you, but you kissed her!"

 

Jamie looks at him like they’re unsure whether to roll their eyes and leave or just slap him in the face. Alex is pretty grateful they don’t opt for either one and just sigh really deeply.

 

"The fundamental difference between you and  **hir** ,  _ Alex _ ,” Jamie says and Alex already knows he fucked up again, it’s all he’s doing these days, “is that  **hir** is my friend, someone I trust and feel comfortable with. You're a person I've been housed with that's never done anything else than creep on me and insist we're meant for each other since the second we've met. Do you understand the difference?"

 

Alex’s shoulders hunch all the way up to his ears, he’s sure. This is what he came here for in the first place, to apologize to Jamie and see if he could make things right, and what’s he’s doing is fucking it up all over again.

 

"Look, I know. I've been meaning to- talk to you about it, I guess. Fix what I've done wrong somehow- I..."

 

"You could start by giving me space, instead you're trailing after me wherever I go."

 

Alex cringes at the words.

 

"I swear it's not purposeful. Not always. I just feel pulled to you. But then you- You don't feel it at all, do you? You've got- You've got hir."

 

Jamie sighs again and picks up their hoodie looking about ready to follow their partner out the door.

 

"Another thing you got wrong about me is that I doubt that I could ever feel that kind of pull to anyone at all. I'm aromantic, Alex. That I like to kiss a few of my friends and that they accept it as a sign of affection is between us. It's nothing to you."

 

"Oh."  _ Oh. Oh fuck. _

 

"I could like you, possibly. But I won't ever be what you want me to be. I might be someone you need to realize what you got wrong about this whole  _ mates _ business, but I’m not anyone more.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna delete this off ao3 because i'm a drama queen, but Mona left me comments on each chapter so now i'm back with another snippet.

Chameleons are a study in motion, flexible and everchanging as the bloodlines mix. Some things are set in stone, some wary depending on the parents. Some can only ever be blamed on evolution.

 

But all of the chameleons share the the basic trait: camouflage.

 

Their bodies change to fit into their surroundings and if they train enough it'll include their clothes, too. If they're good, they can include someone else as they hide.

 

Alex hasn't yet reached the latter where his abilities are concerned, but he's skilled enough that he doesn't even have to consider hiding to melt into his surroundings. In fact, sometimes his body will act on chemosignals alone and fit in. When he's sad, feeling lonely, when he had another row with dad.

 

When he follows Jamie from class to class and learns everything there is about them.

 

It's a-- compulsion, trailing after his mate. He doesn't even realize that's what he's doing some days: he just melds in and follows the tugs of the string that's barely there, still unacknowledged. Like a dog on a hunt.

 

He always sits a few seats back, watches and counts the moles on Jamie's nape, observes the way they play with their pen as they focus on the lecture.

 

Sometimes he leans in close, when Jamie is bored and doodles in their notebook, too curious to stay away.

 

That's how it all ends.

 

He's reading a snipped of a though Jamie just wrote down when the person sitting next to them moves, pushing their chair aside, startling Alex out of his daze and involuntarily brushing against Jamie's arm.

 

And Jamie doesn't just brush it off. They startle, whole body going stiff and staring right ahead. The sheet of paper crumbles in their grip, tearing right off. They don't look back, couldn't see Alex there unless they were a very powerful witch.

 

Yet, a few agonizing minutes later, they pick up their pen, turn to a clean page and write:

 

"I know you're there, Alex. Leave."


	8. Chapter 8

Your mate isn’t a missing part of your soul, but they fill in the nooks and crannies you never noticed you had before. They don’t make you whole because you were never lacking. Those without mates or who haven’t found theirs, who choose not to look aren’t any less because of that. You don’t need a predestined person to live a fulfilling life.

 

They make you fuller. They make you overflow with a power that was always meant to be before someone intervened.

 

That’s why a person doesn’t have just one mate, doesn’t have to have one at all or just in the sense that no one is the same. Not everyone needs the same things from a person they’re meant to be impossibly close with.

 

Mates are the potential that we all have to be something great, but they don’t limit us. Greatness, like love, comes in many forms.

 

\--

 

“You literally only kiss me when you’re drunk,” hir says, a propos of nothing, as hir puts a plate of toast in front of Jamie.

 

Jamie, for their part, blinks at them blearily, still not quite awake and very much feeling the alcohol they practically inhaled the night before sloshing about in their stomach.

 

“I what?”

 

Ida snorts, shakes hir head and pushes Jamie’s mug closer to them.

 

It is Jamie’s actual mug, too, because they’ve taken to leaving at least one big mug at their friends’ places for when they hang out with them.  Not only because they want to avoid any possible emotional transference from handling something as personal as someone’s mug first thing in the morning, but also because Jamie is very particular about tea. Sue them.

 

Ida lets them stew for a few more hours, going as far as to actually push Jamie into the bathroom to take a shower because they’re “Still exuding alcohol fumes, Jamie, could you douse yourself in my shower gel instead, please?”.

 

Later, when they’re both spread over Ida’s couch and Jamie has sobered up Jamie decides it’s time to face the music.

 

“Ida,” they say and wait for hir to turn the TV off and face them properly, giving Jamie hir full attention, “you know how I’m both aromantic and an empath?”

 

Ida hums in affirmative and holds out hir hands to Jamie.

 

Jamie smiles at them, a bit watery, because as much as they don’t like being spontaneously touched by most people, having the option to take comfort and  _ read _ what Ida is feeling right now makes them feel overwhelmed. Loved, too, because Ida understands them and accepts the ways in which Jamie is different from hir.

 

“I don’t feel romantic attraction towards you, but you’re one of my best friends and you mean a lot to me. And sometimes, like when I’m drunk and a little less inhibited—I don’t know if this is going to come out right—“

 

Ida squeezes their hands “Tell me in the words you have and if I don’t get it we’ll talk it out.”

 

Jamie flashes hir a smile.

 

“I enjoy intimacy and I like being affectionate with the people I care about which isn’t always possible, and I guess—when I’m drunk it’s easier for me to just go for it and kiss you because, well, I can blame it on the alcohol. So me kissing you when I’m drunk is a cowardly way of showing that I really like you.”

 

Ida mulls it over for a moment then uses Jamie’s hands to tug them closer, “Can I hug you? Then c’mere.”

 

Jamie sinks against Ida’s side gratefully, basks in the sense of security and care and fondness.

 

“I like that you feel so strongly about me that you want to show it with kisses,” Ida says after a few minutes. Hir’s still holding Jamie and Jamie is by no means small, especially compared to Ida, but they feel protected in Ida’s embrace. “Though I won’t be very comfortable with it if you only ever do it when you’re drunk. Okay? You’re free to kiss me whenever.”

 

“Okay, thank you, but, you’ll tell me if it ever starts bothering you?”

 

“Sure, and I trust you’ll do the same.”


	9. Chapter 9

Alex doesn’t go looking for Ida, he knows better than to accost any of Jamie’s friends. He’s in enough trouble as it is. 

 

Six feet under as Nadine and May said the other day when he got drunk at May’s couch after he met his new roommate, assigned to him since Jamie requested a change. 

 

Zack is nice enough, but Alex is in no condition to be a proper roommate right now. He already told Zack that much, apologized in advance and tried to not get in Zack’s hair too much.

 

They’re both dealing with each other so far. Though Alex isn’t sure if the fact that Zack is a werewolf and can recognize some of the chemosignals Alex is surely giving off is more help than bother.

 

He’ll deal with it later.

 

Right now he’s on a last minute grocery run. It’s Sunday evening and he won’t have much time or energy to go shopping in the middle of the week and Nadine and Danni already cut him off from their fridge.

 

Hir must be doing the same, though judging by the few groceries hir is holding in hir’s hands, Ida is not as hopeless as he is. 

 

Almost unconsciously, Alex looks around searching for a familiar mop of floppy hair. He tells himself he’s not disappointed that he doesn’t see anyone else in the aisle, or the next two.

 

He looks back to where Jamie’s friend is and flinches when he sees hir caught him looking. He almost shrinks in on himself when hir eyes pointedly go lower to the graphic t-shirt he’s wearing, the one he might have-- acquired in secret from Jamie’s laundry.

 

“Still looking for trouble?” hir asks in a bland tone as hir picks between two boxes of tea leaves. 

 

Alex immediately bristles at the accusation, but the deflates right after because hir does have a point. 

 

Still, he hates a little the fact that he feels obliged to justify himself. 

 

“I didn’t follow you here or anything, it’s just a coincidence,” Alex explains. He bears hir’s assessing look with far more patience than he has.

 

“Excuse me if, judging by your past actions, I won’t quite take your word for it.”

 

Alex takes a deep breath, counts back from ten, exhales. Then nods, resigned.

 

He turns around with the intention to check out and leave, but Jamie’s friend calls him back.

 

“I’m going to say this once because I hope we won’t be seeing each other again, but if you pull any of that camouflage crap on Jamie ever again, try to deceive them and stalk them in any way,” hir looks at Alex pointedly, hir eyes far too dark for the store’s bright light, “Trust me when I say that you’ll regret it.”

 

Hir doesn’t wait to hear whatever Alex might have wanted to say to that, just picks both boxes of tea and heads to the check out, leaving Alex staring emptily at the green linoleum floor. 

 

What a joke. 

 

\--

 

Ida knows better than to just hunt Alex down and shove his soulbond nonsense up his self-centered, insolent ass. Jamie wouldn't exactly mind, no matter what they'd say if they ever found out, but any confrontation with Alex might lead to him going right back after Jamie.

 

And that's a thing no one wants.

 

Ida may not know how a soulbond feels, but hir read and learned about it enough to know that what Alex has been doing isn't the worst that could have happened. And as powerful as Ida might be in hir circles, hir is still learning. There are still things hir cannot stop.

 

So Ida lets him go off easily at the store, inwardly thanks hir instincts that made hir insist that Jamie stays in and starts on dinner while Ida gets the rest of the missing ingredients.

 

Besides, repeatedly punching Alex in the face won't get hir any favors with Alex's werewolf friend and May only just caught on that Ida is flirting with him. No way is hir letting Alex fuck up that as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Just to be safe: I do not allow posting this story on goodreads or any other sites. TBH, I don't want any of my fics shared on such sites.


End file.
